James Talboys Wheeler (December 22 or 23, 1824 – January 13 1897) was a bureaucrat-historian of the British Raj, and one of the first European historians of India to rely on documentary sources. The son of a bookseller, he was privately educated, and first attempted an unsuccessful career as a publisher and bookseller himself before venturing into authorship of educational literature and editorial work. In 1858 he moved to Madras to become editor of the Madras Spectator in India; Later that year he was appointed professor of moral and mental philosophy at Madras Presidency College, and during his time there developed an interest in Hindu customs - of which he believed Europeans in India were largely ignorant. Wheeler would become a professional bureaucrat in the Indian Service, employed by the Raj government in Madras, and later in Calcutta and British Burma. During his time in Madras, he would produce his  Madras in the Olden Time, a history based on the wealth of government records made accessible to him through his work; the first chapters would be published serially in the Madras Spectator. He produced a number of summary reports relating to the history and politics of countries that bordered on British India for the government during his time in Calcutta; beyond his bureaucratic work, he would write a four-volume History of India, which was published between 1867 and 1881.



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